The invention refers to a roof rack for motor vehicles comprising a cross member and leg members arranged on both sides of said cross member, each leg member comprising a support unit, which is adapted to rest on a respective carrier bar unit of a body of said motor vehicle, said support unit comprising a retaining unit adapted to be connected to a mounting section of said body of said vehicle.
A carrier bar unit is formed by a carrier bar unit extending at a distance from a roof of said motor vehicle and a foot connecting said carrier bar unit to a body of the vehicle. Said foot being realized in various versions, for example by extending over the entire length of the carrier bar unit or only over certain sections of the length of the carrier bar.
Roof racks according to the prior art usually use screws and nuts in order to fix the retaining unit to the carrier bar unit in a position in which the retaining unit exerts a clamping action on said mounting section of said carrier bar unit in order to clamp said support unit against said roof section.
Such connections using screws and nuts usually make it necessary to use a tool in order to fix the retaining unit to the support unit in its position clamping the support unit to said mounting section of said body of said vehicle.
The need to use tools for mounting the roof rack reduces the mounting comfort of the roof rack and also bears the risk that the retaining unit clamps the support unit with respect to the carrier bar unit with unnecessary strong clamping forces so that there is a risk that under load peaks the screw/nut connection breaks.
Therefore it is the object of the invention to provide a roof rack for motor vehicles which has a high handling comfort and which allows mounting of the roof rack with improved safety.